Congratulations to sociology major Jonathon Holland ’11, winner of the Provost’s Award at the 2011 Student Scholarship Exposition for his study titled “College Students’ Knowledge of and Beliefs about Socialism and their Attitudes toward Leftist Economic Policies.” Read Jonathon Holland’s project abstract below.

Little research has been done on people’s knowledge about socialism. The General Social Survey and some Gallup polls have focused on attitudes toward socialism but have not measured how much people know about this form of economic/political organization. Using survey data collected from Bradley students during the fall of 2010 (n=212), this study focuses on college students’ knowledge of and attitudes toward socialism. The study results suggest that knowledge about the United States government correlates with knowledge about socialism. As expected, students’ knowledge about socialism was related to their beliefs about this form of organization and to their general political orientation (liberal to conservative). However, political orientation was the only variable consistently associated with students’ attitudes toward leftist economic policies.